Watergate scandal, as years and decades go by, begins to look as one of the most overrated events in history. When it happened, many believed that it ushered a new era – a brave new world when things like illegal surveillance, corruption and starting bloody and protracted wars under questionable reasons would never happen again. Nowadays most of us know better. That, however, didn’t prevent some brave souls from attempting to repeat the grand achievement of Woodward and Bernstein. Most of such attempts failed, sometimes with tragic results. Protagonist of 2014 film Kill the Messenger provides one of such examples.

The plot is based on the book by Nick Shou, describing a true story of Gary Webb (played by Jeremy Renner), reporter for San Jose Mercury News. In 1996 Webb was covering War on Drugs and, after receiving tip, saw federal trial against one of the major cocaine smugglers quickly and inexplicably collapsing. Webb sees that the federal authorities didn’t want public to pay much attention to its star witness, Nicaraguan drug smuggler Danilo Blandon (Yul Vazquez) who had turned against his American associates. His investigation into Blandon’s past discovers his role in 1980s Central American conflict, namely attempts of CIA-sponsored Contras rebels to topple pro-Soviet Sandinista regime. Webb begins to connect the dots and concludes that Contras used to finance their war by smuggling drugs into USA and that CIA knew that and chose to look other way, thus becoming responsible for all the misery created by crack cocaine epidemic in American inner cities. The result of his investigation is “Dark Alliance”, series of articles that instantly turns him into journalistic star. His moment of glory is, however, brief; other media outlets begin to question not only his findings, but also his journalistic integrity. Webb, convinced that CIA wants to silence him, is suddenly faced with increasing pressure from his editors and colleagues and, in the end, loses his family and job.

Gary Webb’s story is relatively unknown, but potentially fascinating and its film adaptation could have resulted with another classic like All the President’s Men. It shows not only some dark and unpleasant secrets from America’s recent past, but also the disturbing things that happen to those who expose such secrets. Webb’s story was in many ways not so different from the story of more recent and more whistle-blowers like Manning, Assange and Snowden. Unfortunately, it happened in the wrong time, when the American public, still in self-congratulatory mood after the victory in Cold War and expecting decades of utopian Pax Americana, didn’t have much enthusiasm for digging skeletons from Cold War closets. So, the message was ignored and the messenger was, at least figuratively, killed.

In some ways the same thing happened with this film. Michael Cuesta, director known for his work on successful and often intriguing TV shows, handles the plot with great skill, finding the proper balance between suspense, drama and presentation of the facts. Jeremy Renner, who co-produced the film, is also quite effective in lead role. Unfortunately, the script by Peter Landseman, journalist known for covering stories very much like Webb’s, is less successful. It starts well, by explaining schizophrenic priorities of Reagan’s America, torn between War on Drugs and Cold War; it is less successful in showing why would “Dark Alliance” continue in Clinton’s era and it completely fails to connect the scandal and Webb’s ordeal with the present day. Subject even more intriguing than government’s persecution of Webb is mainstream’s media complicity in it. That was the “dark alliance”, even more dangerous than the temporary relationship between intelligence services and few Third World criminals. Kill the Messenger failed to properly explore this potentially explosive subject. The depressive ending of the film, therefore, leaves the audience with disappointing lack of closure. Kill the Messenger nevertheless serves some of its purpose by making audience think about some unpleasant truths, but Gary Webb deserved something much better.